Masques

From which cloth was your masque sewn?

Is it your neighbor’s or is it your own?

Did you ravage the coffers of the elite?

Or pilfer remnants of the weak?

Was it a gift from your father’s hand?

An obligation to fulfill another man’s plan?

Perhaps you put needle to thread

And manufactured your own instead.

Constructed of your own blood and tears

With seams hard-earned through the years?

Does it make you proud to wear?

Or only hide the shame you bear?

Does it give courage to thwart the villain’s reign,

And to serve and protect like Parker, Kent and Wayne?

Is it a reflection of your true self?

Or does it reflect the truth of someone else?

Perhaps the most important question to ask:

Why do we wear these silly little masques?

Thorns

Who is it that curses man

With the nearsightedness of one?

And where was his law put to paper?

That all gardens be sown with red roses and no other!

Who is he to condemn my yellow arbor climbers or my neighbor’s calla lilies?

And what is to be done with the sweet honey suckle fence?

Tear it down, and prepare the ground for roses to match his.

Destroy the beauty that grew up wild, unspoiled, and free;

Replace it to please the one of whose company we’re forced to keep.

No place for buds of different hues or textured foliage here

Strike down the golden ones that stand so tall following after the Son,

And the timid Lily of the Valley that follows after none.

No preference for vines that creep or trees that weep

All Moon Flowers and Morning Glories gone.

Only red roses like his remain.

For what purpose does he force this mold?

Or do we all go willingly?

Perhaps the secret is simply this: He has no capacity for anything more.

Are we the company misery keeps?

Doomed to remain in the unchanged mundane for the sake of the insecurities of the insane?

Are we prisoners of the self-loathing self-righteous?

They cannot dictate where beauty is found!

Do not be the company that misery keeps!

There is freedom in imperfection, and beauty in the unknown.

Embrace these in others, but more in yourself.

Be the beauty you seek, but above all…be your own.